Cosmetic products, such as cosmetic masks, can be widely used to deliver various health and cosmetic benefits to the skin, such as on the face, neck and chest.
Traditionally, the masks can be sold commercially in packaged bags with the various active ingredients (e.g., green tea extract, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, resveratrol, Q10, and/or other similar ingredients) already predisposed on the mask. For example, traditionally, the mask can generally be packaged already immersed in a liquid mixture, for example, the solvent, containing various active ingredients, for example, the solute. To use such mask, the user opens the package, removes the mask already pre-immersed in the liquid mixture and applies the mask to various parts of the body as instructed on the package.
The active ingredients dissolved in the liquid mixture can be delivered onto the skin using the mask to achieve certain desired benefits. However, these traditional, and currently designed, pre-packaged masks deliver no or very little active cosmetic ingredients onto the skin. This is because the active ingredients, which can be dissolved in the liquid solution, become unstable, and can rapidly lose their activity over a short period of time (e.g., a few weeks). For example, Vitamin C (e.g., L-ascorbic acid) and Vitamin E (e.g. tocopherol) dissolved in a liquid solution and stored in a closed and dark container lose nearly 72% and 35%, respectively, of their initial activity after only 60 days. Exemplary results illustrating this loss can be seen in Appendix 1. As a result, the active ingredient on the mask has little to no effectiveness by the time the packaged mask reaches the hands of the consumer as it can take weeks or months between the times the ingredients are dissolved and when the user applies the mask. This reduction in effectiveness can be further exacerbated if the packaged mask sits on the store shelf for a prolonged period of time or may not be immediately used by the user at the time of purchase.
Thus, there is a need for a packaged mask in which the active ingredient and solvent can be separated such that the active ingredients do not lose or do not significantly lose their effectiveness or activity before arriving at the hands of the consumer, and/or a way to determine whether the active ingredients have been already mixed prior to use.